What Is the Impact of Marketing Automation?

Lisa Manthei

To some, the words ‘marketing automation’ can trigger panic mode. It can be difficult to identify where to start with any advanced marketing technology, and automation solutions are no different. But fear not, it’s actually quite easy to get up and running, as long as goals have been clearly defined.

Marketing automation is a go-to strategy for good reason: it helps boost employee productivity, streamline workflows, and increase conversions. It can be tempting to try and do everything at once, which can quickly spiral out of control if you’re not ready. It’s okay to start off with a few smaller projects and workflows, and then steadily build-out your marketing automation platform.

Why Marketing Automation Matters

Automation allows you to control and run complex campaigns with ease, with minimal to no manual effort, reaching highly segmented audiences, at ideal times for maximum ROI. When customer communication and engagement is automated, you can spend more time focusing on high-level strategy and creating high-impact content.

Marketing automation can also help engage customers and draw them into 1:1 conversations with brands. Whether this is just an email at the top of a consumer’s inbox, or a direct message responding to their social media post, marketing automation helps brands stay in touch with their audiences.

Start Off Small

Getting started with marketing automation can be easy, if you know where to begin. Simple recurring campaigns, such as welcome programs, automated response emails, and re-engagement correspondence can be a great jumping-off point. These messages are quick, easy to create, and utilize data points that are probably already housed in your brand’s CRM.

Despite these messages being so easy to get up and running, they are a great way to see immediate results. The more you can get your brand name (and buying options) in front of potential customers, the higher your conversion and click rates will be. B2C marketers can take advantage of marketing automation on a simple level to start influencing every part of the customer journey.

Another good first step in marketing automation is to build recurring campaigns. Once you identify a campaign strategy that works well for your team, replicate it! Workflows can easily be duplicated to increase wins across different audiences and groups. The data-driven insights available in marketing automation solutions can help your team identify the best places to implement these new workflows. This quick win will give hours back to your team to focus on critical issues and high-level strategy.

Grow and Innovate

As your team gets more comfortable with marketing automation and the benefits it can provide, you can begin to grow and innovate with more advanced workflows. A/B testing, for example, is a great way to identify where to optimize and refine your marketing automation strategies. Testing allows you to send multiple variations of similar content to different groups, helping you know for sure if certain messaging is performing up to standards or not.

Innovation with marketing automation can ultimately lead to multi-channel content and campaigns. Automating messages and content across various platforms helps optimize marketing ROI. When social media, email, and website content is all automated on the same cycle and based on similar triggers, customers will see consistent messages and updates across all platforms.

Get Started Now

Now that you know just how easy it is to get started with marketing automation and innovate down the road, it’s time to get started. Check out “The 5 B2C Marketing Trends to Watch for in 2017” to learn more or you can request a demo of Emarsys Marketing Automation software today.

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